Its been a while since I have posted about Twitter.  I the past 9 months, Twitter has seen a huge jump in popularity.  Recently, a lot of celebrities and network news organizations have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon and brought even more attention to Twitter.  Now, its hard to go a day without seeing a news show on FoxNews or CNN mention their Twitter page.

When I eventually decided to join Twitter, I was not sure how useful the service would be for me.  I mainly saw Twitter as a useful tool for communicating a quick message within a group, company, or class about an upcoming meeting or task.  Now, I see Twitter as a way of networking with other like-minded users.  For example, I have started using one of my Twitter accounts to keep up with others interested in using technology in education.

For more info on Twitter, click here to read Twitter’s explanation or look below to see Common Craft’s “Twitter in Plain English” video.

Today I created a TimeToast timeline to prepare material on blogging I will be using in an upcoming lesson.

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ScribeFire – Fire Up Your Blogging!

I have written about Windows Live Writer a couple of times. It is a great blogging tool.

I have recently found another great blogging tool, Scribfire. Scribefire is a Firefox extension that allows you to right-click on a website and blog about that site. In addition, Scribefire places an icon in the lower right corner of your Firefox screen. Clicking on this icon will bring up the Scribefire editing window.

The Scribefire editor allows you to enter the blog entry without logging into your blog. I am actually writing this blog entry using Scribefire.

Other features include, inserting images and media files. Like Windows Live Writer, Scribefire handles saving drafts for later editing & publishing, tags, and categories.

Click here to download Scribefire.

It is quickly becoming an indispensable blogging tool.  Think of it as a Word Processor for blogging.  I can easily start on a topic, then save it for later.  I know Wordpress and Blogspot allow drafts to be saved, but WLW makes it tremendously easier.

One big advantage is that if I want to include the same post (like this one) to my multiple blogs, I can easily publish to one blog then publish to another and another (without re-typing any info).

Windows Live Write (WLW) is a free tool for creating blog posts offline.  WLW is a Microsoft program created to work with Microsoft’s Windows Live blogging services.  However, it also works with several other blog hosting services(like blogger.com) and blog apps (Wordpress).

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Welcome to the EduTech Bits and Bytes Technology 4 Teaching Blog.

My first few posts will not be covering any new tech items.  Instead, I will be covering various tech items I have used over the past two years.

The first topic to discuss is blogging.  Since you are reading this, you are probably already aware of blogging.  However, in case you just found this post by accident or random search engine surfing, I will give a brief overview of blogging.

A blog is basically an online journal used to communicate your ideas, information, opinions, etc. to others.

If you want to start blogging, you have several free options.  These include using blog hosting sites…

• Blogger.com
• Wordpress.com
• Windows Live Spaces
• LiveJournal
• Dozens of others

Each of the above Blog Hosts have fairly easy setup steps which will allow you to begin blogging within a few minutes.

Another option is to use hosted webspace along with a purchased domain name.  Then install blogging software on your webspace.  Wordpress.org offers free blogging software.

Which option should you use?  This will vary.  For most people, the best option is to use a service, such as blogger.com.  Let the hosting services do most of the work for you with no out of pocket costs.  However, if you are web development savvy, want your own domain name, want more control over the look & feel of your blog, and do not mind paying for your space & domain name, then hosting your own blog is for you.

On a personal note, I use Blogger.com for some items (such as the original version of this blog) and use purchased webspace for my classroom web sites and this new site.